


In The Hot, Hot Rays

by sweetheartdean



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Swap, Bottom Dean Winchester, Coming of Age, M/M, Pining Sam Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Younger Dean Winchester/Older Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 14:50:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13102467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetheartdean/pseuds/sweetheartdean
Summary: By the end of the summer, Dean’s got seven hunts under his belt, countless bruises and scrapes, and one hell of a hero complex.Sam watches like Dean’s learning how to walk and Sam can’t let him fall once.Sam Winchester's pretty little brother is a regular pain in the ass.





	In The Hot, Hot Rays

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for whiskygalore, written for the SPN_J2_xmas exchange. I combined your likes into a Dean-centric story about a younger Dean who gets two kinds of happy endings and bottoms for one of them. I hope you like it! :) Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
> 
> A giant thank you to sexystripedtie and sleepypercy for the initial read-throughs and cheerleading, and my amazing beta quickreaver, who whipped this fic right into shape! <3
> 
> Warnings: attempted kidnapping, sibling incest, and a blink-and-you-miss-it description of gore.

_I try to play god_  
_Do my best to keep the heat at bay_  
_Maybe that would make you want to stay_  
_In the hot, hot rays_  
**_—Fleet Foxes_**  


Dean likes pretty things.

With all the concentration of someone who’s three years and five months old, and stubborn to boot, he fishes for the Barbie in the sales bin of the Walmart Dad brought them to. He told Sam to watch Dean like a hawk and that’s exactly what Sam does. The doll’s got a periwinkle glitter-shiny little dress on. Dean holds it to his flannel draped chest, squeezing death-grip tight. Sam might only be seven but he already knows that Dad doesn’t like girly things in a boy’s hands. Sam kind of ignored the whole toys stage, getting straight to his books, but the time he lingered over a pink Disney Princess-themed book in the bookstore earned him a raised eyebrow from Dad. 

You don’t wanna mess with Dad when he’s got a raised eyebrow going on. Sam does it anyway. Dad says Sam doesn’t know what’s good for him sometimes. Maybe it’s true. Sam likes home cooking, though. And books. These are good things. But Dad thinks that eating gross diner food without complaining and running and bow-hunting are good things, so maybe they just disagree on what good things are. Doesn’t mean Sam doesn’t know what’s good for him.

Dad’s coming back from the frozen meals aisle soon and Dean’s got a Barbie in his hands. It’s almost like when in movies, the heroes try to hide away from the monster and you watch on the edge of your seat. Sam used to put a hand over Dean’s eyes when the monster was too scary, but Dean stubbornly pried Sam’s fingers apart to get a peek.

Dean doesn’t scare easy. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t know monsters are real like Sam does. The boogeyman isn’t that creepy when you haven’t seen a clawed paw grab and scratch at the tree bark two feet away from you.

Sam shakes his head and tries to pry the doll out of Dean’s fingers. Dean clutches at it in a death grip, and his lips wobble as he stares up at Sam, on the brink of a rolling-on-a-Walmart-floor meltdown. 

“Okay, no— no, hey,” Sam shushes, big-brother experienced. “Hey, you want this sword instead? Look, it got gems! And they sparkle, too.”

Apparently, the sparkle isn’t why Dean likes the Barbie. And, apparently, Dean doesn’t want a toy truck, a G.I. Joe, a Transformer or a ball with stars on it, either. No, Dean wants that Barbie or else he’ll cry so very loud.

Sam huffs, digging through the discount bin. He has to drape himself over the edge to really get in there and almost falls in once or twice. Wouldn’t even be that much of a lie. He’s long understood Dean and him are discount kids, forgotten somewhere in a dingy motel where no one ever really looks.

Dean looks at Dad like he hung the moon, though. Sam hates to disappoint his little brother, so he doesn’t explain what he understands, himself: Dad’s a big jerk for making them move so much. Sam’s missed so much of his first grade that he had to steal a couple of textbooks to read and to go over it himself. He’s been trying to teach Dean how to read, too, but Dean doesn’t care for books much. He likes toys way more. Of course, it could be because he’s only three and almost a half, but Mom had already taught Sam to read by then. Then again, that was Mom. She was magic. And Sam’s not magic. He doesn’t have the soft touch like that, doesn’t know how to make apple pie like hers, doesn’t know how to kiss someone all better.

But he has to try because Mom’s gone, and Dean needs someone to hold his hand when they cross the road.

Sam digs out a small plush teddy bear with beady eyes and offers it to Dean. Dean tentatively lowers the hand with the Barbie and reaches out for the bear. When Dean buries his button-nose in its fur, Sam quickly pries the Barbie out of his fingers and returns her to the bottom of the discount bin.

Dad sighs at the bear but lets Dean carry it all the way to the checkout, where it joins the soda and Spaghetti-O-s and Lucky Charms on the till.

Sam holds Dean’s hand when they walk back to the car across the parking lot. Dean holds the teddy bear’s front paw, and its lower paws sway inches above ground until Sam makes Dean tuck him under his armpit, just in case they step into a puddle.

Sam holds Dean’s hand.

-

His mouth is full of a salty taste like a grave before the match. Knees and palms and elbows scraped to hell and back, but it’s the sting in his chest that has Sam swallowing tears. Kids are nasty little things sometimes, and even training day and night doesn’t help if they gang up on you.

And they always, always gang up on you, especially if you’re the new kid. Especially if your clothes hang off your back all weird because your dad got them at a second-hand store with room for you to grow. Especially if you’re trailer trash, especially if you’ve got a big mouth, especially if you don’t know when to quit. All Sam wants is one friend, but it’s too much to ask. Everything is too much to ask when you’re a young hunter.

Sam sniffles and wipes his nose on his sleeve.

Pitter-patter of small feet. “You told me not to do that, and you do it yourself. Not fair!” Accusatory.

“Go away,” Sam mutters under his breath, curling up more. Dean tugs at his shirt, huffing into his ear.

“Are you crying?” he asks in a befuddled voice like he can’t honestly believe this is happening, that something could reduce his big brother to tears. 

“No,” Sam’s cheeks are treacherously wet. Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

“Sammy…” Dean frowns, running his chubby hand on Sam’s shoulder. Sam grits his teeth.

“Leave me alone,” he mumbles, turning his head away. It’s dumb, and it’s embarrassing. Embarrassing that he let them kick him around, embarrassing he’s crying about it, embarrassing he’s crying about it in front of Dean, no less. He’s gotta be the cool big brother, right? Tough and strong so Dean would have someone to look up to.

Stomp, stomp, stomp. Dean walks off, huffy, and that’s another thing Sam’s going to have to deal with, his bratty little brother moping around. It’s not fair to think like that, when he’s the one who chased Dean away, but the world isn’t fair, either, so why should Sam -- sob, sob, sob -- be?

There’s shuffling in the corner of the room where their duffles are piled up. Sam looks up to make sure Dean doesn’t go into Dad’s duffle and stab himself by accident or something. But Dean’s got a pack of band-aids and book of fairytales in his hands — his favorite, with pretty pictures. Heroes on white horses and princesses in frilly dresses.

Dean tugs at Sam’s arm all over again, and Sam relents. Dean carefully pulls a band-aid off and puts it on Sam’s scuffed elbow. Sam closes his tear-stained eyes, rubs at his clumped eyelashes.

“Once upon a time,” Dean’s voice starts, bright and chipper, “there was a beautiful princess…” The warm weight of Dean suddenly kitten-curls up against Sam’s side. Sam pulls him closer and gives Dean a weak smile. Dean’s smile is brighter than the sun, his floppy hair falling in his face. 

No one really read bedtime stories to Sam, not since Mom. And Dean doesn’t do voices or shadow puppets like she used to. He barely stumbles through the pages.

Sam loves it anyway.

He reaches out to boop Dean’s freckled nose, and Dean laughs like he’s never seen anything funnier happen.

Sam picks up a dandelion when they go sit outside of the room to get some fresh air in the motel’s parking lot. The stubborn weed was poking through the cracks in the pavement. There’s a second, smaller one, and Sam picks it for Dean when he notices Dean staring.

“Don’t get the juice from the stem on your clothes,” Sam mutters, swiping his finger across the place where the stem tore. “Super hard to wash out, okay?”

“Okay!” Dean nods. “Sammy, we hafta make a wish.” He closes his eyes in concentration and blows at the dandelion. Probably wished for candy and lollipops.

Sam blows at it too. Wishes for Dean to keep that happiness burning in him forever. 

Dean’s little arms close around his neck, and the dandelion juice gets all over the back of Sam’s shirt, but he can’t even bring himself to care. Dean’s cheek is pressed against Sam’s collarbone, and Sam runs his hand through Dean’s hair, over and over and over again.

-

“I want candy!” Dean demands as soon as they walk into the grocery store, and all but hangs off Sam’s arm, grabbing at it with both his hands. “Sam, pleasepleasepleaseeee!”

Sam counts out the coins and the bills that Dad left them. At nine years old, Dad already trusts him with watching after Dean all by himself. They’re not really supposed to be wandering off that far from the motel, but Sam’s sick and tired of the snacks from the vending machine. And it’s just a few blocks down. And Dad’s running late, again. “Just one, okay? Go pick it out and wait for me in the candy aisle. I’ll get us some food and find you and we’ll go pay.”

Sam throws a pack of cheap pasta in the shopping cart. Some kids from his class might think it’s awesome to be eating junk food every day, but it really grows old after a while. Sam inspects a block of discounted cheese before setting it back down with a sigh when he notices a bloom of mold in it. Pasta it is. He’ll just have to put a lot of salt in. Their supplies of salt are always steady, at least.

Sam sighs all over again and walks back to the candy aisle. A girl with two floppy pigtails is rummaging through the Snickers bars and an elderly lady is picking up a bag of Werther’s Originals and Dean’s not there. Dean’s not there. Sam whips around, almost knocking down the cardboard stand of the Nesquik rabbit advertising instant chocolate, no sugar added!

“Dean!” he calls out, looking around, his stomach whooshing down into a bottomless pit, falling and falling and falling. “Dean!”

He hits the checkered floor running, cutting corners and pushing through the customers, frantically going from one face to the other and onto the next. Someone curses Sam when he crashes right into them, but he barely hears it behind the thump thump thump in his ears. 

He sees Dean’s hand first, held in a tight grip, then the rest of him, stumbling on his short stumpy legs after a tall man. 

“Let my brother go!” Sam yells at the top of his lungs, yanking on Dean’s free hand. The man seems taken aback, and Sam shoves Dean behind him, squaring his shoulders. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“He was lost. I was taking him to the cashier so she could make an announcement.” The man narrows his eyes at Sam below the brim of his trucker ballcap, where the shadow’s draped across his face like sunglasses.

“I don’t believe you. Get away from us, you creep!” Sam yells with all the attitude of a little punk trailer park kid.

“It hurts.”

Sam whips around, horrified, but Dean’s talking to him, not to the creepy man. Sam’s been grabbing Dean’s hand in a chokehold, a balloon string on a windy day. The man has disappeared in the aisle forest by the time Sam relaxes his grip.

“Why did you go with him?!” Sam crouches next to Dean and grabs his shoulders to catch his eye. Dean’s on the verge of tears, the crybaby, but Sam’s too mad for patience right now. “How dumb are you?”

“But… but you took so long. And I tested him, see?” Dean shows Sam his small silver cross, a protection gift Dad brought Dean back from one of his hunts. Dean hasn’t taken it off since. “It’s okay. He wasn’t a shifter or anythin’.” 

Somewhere along the line, they forgot to tell Dean that you should be scared of people too. Sam has Dean promise they won’t utter a peep of this to Dad. They shouldn’t have been there anyway.

Sam sees a boy Dean’s age on a milk carton that Dad buys for them when he’s back from the hunt. He gets a horrible sinking feeling, but his mouth is glued shut. Dean keeps quiet for once, too.

It keeps Sam awake at night, that he didn’t say anything. Too scared, too young, too stupid.

He learns one thing that day, though. He does have a friend, and his friend’s name is Dean. And no matter what, Sam can’t lose his friend.

They sleep in the same bed, Sam and his best friend Dean, and Sam makes sure to keep one eye open for anything that might come for his baby brother. Dean clings to his teddy bear. Sam clings to Dean’s innocence.

-

The summer Dean turns ten is hot and humid. It’s hard to breathe. Or maybe it’s just that Sam’s lungs are corroded with worry. 

Dad takes him on his first hunt, and Dean’s bursting at the seams with enthusiasm. Sam stands guard—a silent, armed, hunched-down shadow on gangly limbs in case Dean gets hurt. Dean doesn’t get hurt on the salt-n-burn. Or the skinwalker hunt. Dean leads the kidnapped toddler victim out of a changeling lair, talks to her until her sobs turn into twinkling laughter and gives her a hug.

By the end of the summer, Dean’s got seven hunts under his belt, countless bruises and scrapes, and one hell of a hero complex.

Sam watches like Dean’s learning how to walk and Sam can’t let him fall once. 

-

Dean gets fed up with Sam’s clumsy cooking by the time he’s eight. By the time he’s twelve, he does all the cooking whenever they get a normal place, or at least a motel room with a kitchenette. Sets dinner on the table like it’s no big deal. 

Dean’s good at caring for people. He never even knew Mom, but he got that _something_ from her: something soft, kind and unweathered by the world. Sam’s fighting so hard to keep it that way. Never lets Dad take him on a hunt alone, makes sure to hover around Dean in school, in the store, everywhere.

Dean used to love pretty things, and now he’s becoming one himself. Even Sam has to admit that, but only to make sure the world can never taint him. There’s a lot more danger out there than the monsters lurking in the shadows. Normal human people do the most horrible things in the light of day. Sam’s skin still creepy-crawls whenever he remembers the man in the trucker cap yanking Dean along.

And Dean’s a pretty one, plush pink lips and eyelashes like a mascara ad.

Sam wishes he could hold his hand while crossing the road again. Things were easier when Dean was ten years younger and Sam could carry him around, piggyback. Dad making them stay in shitholes in the middle of nowhere doesn’t do much for Dean’s safety, either. Sam can feel it, the slimy, lingering looks that slide over Dean’s body and drip down his bowlegs. No matter where they go, everyone wants a piece of his little brother with his scuffed sneakers and torn-to-tatters acid wash.

Sharp teeth and sharp claws and no way to wrap himself around Dean to keep him safe. 

Summer rolls right by, crashes into fall, descends into winter. 

When Sam comes back from the food run, Dean’s cleaning a gun on the edge of the bed, feet in woollen socks skidding across the floor as he swings them back and forth like a pendulum. Sam scowls.

“Did you finish your math homework?” Sam’s got nothing but exasperation to give. Dean’s got a black eye and a C- average. “You have a quiz tomorrow.”

“How do you even know that? Did you go through my stuff again?” Dean prickles up and stares Sam down. 

“Your backpack started to _smell_. You do know you’re supposed to throw out sandwiches that go bad, right?”

“Dammit. Right. I was saving that for later. Guess I forgot, heh.” 

Sam grits his teeth. “Did you do it or not?”

“No. ‘Course not. Dad told us we needed to get all the guns cleaned and he’s coming back real soon.”

“Your homework is important, too.”

“Yeah, fractions’re really gonna help me lop off monster heads faster…” Dean hums, disassembling the rock salt shotgun with way too much ease for a twelve-year-old. “We’re moving in a couple days anyway. What’s it matter?”

“It matters. You can’t _just_ be a hunter. You should have a backup plan.”

Dean glares. “Well, geez, Sam, not all of us get off on fuckin’ Algebra.”

“Watch your mouth,” Sam says, automatic. He sits down on his own bed and leans forwards, trying to catch Dean’s evasive gaze. “I know it’s difficult with all the moving, okay? But sixth grade stuff isn’t that hard. You’re smart, Dean. There’s no reason you wouldn’t be able to figure this stuff out.”

“Dad said he’s gonna teach me more hunting stuff soon.” Dean straight-up ignores Sam in the favor of perpetual _daddaddad_. “I’ll pull my own weight—”

“Stop it!” Sam snaps like a dry twig. Dean’s fingers speed up, cleaning the gun maniacally. Sam yanks the goddamn thing out of his hands. Dean stays there with outstretched hands for a split-second before crossing his arms over his chest. “Dean. You need to study. I don’t care what Dad says.”

“Hunting’s what we do!” Dean huffs, frustrated. “If we don’t hunt, who the hell will? But there are plenty other people out there who can write essays and do science projects with—with the erupting volcanoes and other crap like that!”

“No, hunting’s what Dad does. We don’t have to shut up and fall in line. We’re his sons, not his soldiers.” Sam chews on his lower lip. “I’ve been thinking of leaving a few times. Just packing up and hitting the road. Dad gave me the car; we could just run away. You and me.”

Six-year-old Dean would’ve followed his big brother anywhere. Maybe even when he was nine or ten. But now that he’s tasted the kool-aid of hunting, well ...

“You’re nuts.” Dean takes a moment to laugh. “Dad would be crushed if we left. ‘Sides, I like hunting. You’re just crazy protective, wishin’ I was sitting my ass down at the table studying all day. Well, tough, Sam. I don’t have to shut up and fall in line with what you think is good for me, either.” 

Sam barely recognizes him anymore. The pink and glitter chipped away, sparkle by sparkle, camo and denim rolling right up to take their place. Dean’s been trying to please Dad so hard, practically begging for a _well-done-son_ like a dog begs for a treat. Sam’s right there to pat his shoulder and to tell him he’s doing great, always, but, apparently, Dean only wants the approval he can’t have.

“What if you get injured really bad and can’t hunt anymore? You need a backup plan.”

“If I couldn’t hunt, I’d blow my brains out,” Dean says with all the conviction of a tween who thinks that death happens to other people and if he died, he would be able to look at his own funeral and laugh at people who didn’t appreciate him enough alive.

“Don’t even say that shit.” Sam narrows his eyes. Dean uses that moment to get the shotgun back and double down on the furious scrub-a-dub. 

“If you’re chicken, go ahead. Run away. I’m staying right here.”

“I’m not chicken! Who’s been backing your ass up all this time?” Sam’s offended down to his currently very twisted gut.

“I never asked you to. I swear, you think I’m some kinda porcelain doll that’s gonna break in half if it takes a punch or two. I don’t need you hovering around me all the damn time!”

For once Sam doesn’t rush over with a band-aid when Dean jams his finger skin in the mechanism when reassembling the gun. Something sickly vindictive spreads in his veins as Dean licks the blood drops, scowling.

-

Sam starts sneezing somewhere T minus two hundred miles to their next hunt. Coughing fifty miles later. By the Sunrise Motel, room 16, he’s running a fever and collapses on the bed. Someone puts a cool hand on his forehead, probably Dean, but maybe Dad. Someone pulls a blanket over him, a heavy weight on top of his cold-sweat feverish body.

It’s almost Christmas. Sam hates being sick on Christmas.

He wakes up with most of it melted away, along with the day; the sun is dipping behind the horizon outside of the window. Sam rubs the sleep and goop out of his eyes and slowly sits down. The room’s empty.

The room’s empty. The duffles gone, the other bed made army-like, tucked right in, covers stretched taut. A folded in half, one-third filled-in geography worksheet is lying on the bedside stand next to a bottle of water and another stuffed full of pills. Sam flips the paper open. 

_went hunting with Dad. hope you feel better when you wake up dude!_ in Dean’s familiar chicken scrawl. Sam crumples the worksheet in his fingers, blood boiling. Dean all alone out there? Well, with Dad, but Sam knows how Dad rolls. Get the thing dead, come hell or high water. 

Sam squirms in the bed for the few hours until the door swings open and Dad and Dean step over the salt line. Dean’s arm is wrapped in a sling, and Sam practically jumps off the bed. 

“What the hell happened?” He snaps as ferociously as he can with his voice on a sore throat lockdown. 

“He slipped on the wet grass when he was shooting, took a swan dive right into the grave we’d dug out. But, y’know, kids are tough. He’ll be right as rain in no time, huh? Yeah, Dean?”

Dad’s rallying him up, trying to make this broken arm a badge of honor and not the stupid, avoidable injury it is. Sam grits his teeth, hard, like he’s trying to grind them to dust. Dad’s got a grip around Dean’s loyal bone and he’s yanking at it whenever it looks like Dean might stray away from the family business. 

What kinda boy doesn’t wanna be a superhero?

“Could’ve broken your neck, Dean,” Sam says as soon as Dad leaves to shower, the ugly purple door swinging shut. Who even picks colors for these places? How does all this still not hurt Dean’s eyes? How isn’t he still dying to run away, anywhere but here? “You could’ve …”

“But I didn’t. And we got the ghost. Now the people it would’ve haunted get to live another day.” Dean shrugs, winces at the pain the movement sends through his jostled arm. Dean grins through the hurt, always does. If Sam ever leaves Dean with Dad, mano-a-mano, Dean’s going to end up with each and every bone in his body crushed, eaten by a vamp, bitten by a werewolf, stabbed shot killed. Or he’ll turn into a mini-Dad. Both of these thoughts send chills down Sam’s arms and ice shards down Sam’s throat. 

Dean takes the couch that night, says he doesn’t wanna catch Sam’s cold. Sure. Dean’s not scared of colds, and Dad’s been long saying they’re getting too old for one bed. 

Three schools later, Sam says to the guidance counsellor, no, thank you, but no. You know, I’m going to inherit the family business. College isn’t something I’m interested in. 

He looks at the brochures she found for him: a few community colleges, a few big name schools. Even Stanford. Sam takes the pamphlet with him on a whim and flips through it in the car while he waits for Dean to walk out. Colgate smiles from students studying on the grass outside, white coat labs, presentations in the projector’s harsh light, coffee study dates, all of these things Sam won’t ever get to have.

He has Dean, and that has to be enough. If Sam could, he’d carry him out of the life like he carried Dean out of the fire when he was just a bundle of joy, but Dean grew too heavy for him to lug around. Dean would never leave willingly. When Sam wasn’t looking, Dad got Dean chained down to his suicide mission, ankle in a heavy lead bracelet on a sinking ship. 

“Heya, Sammy!” Dean plops into the passenger seat together with his new toy, a black skateboard he most probably stole. Sam didn’t ask when Dean turned up with it one day, like dragging in a stray dog, but they don’t have this kind of money. This was a few states ago, so at least Sam doesn’t have to worry about them getting tracked down and the police a-knocking on their door. Yes, of course, the 5-0 has nothing better to do than look for stolen skateboards. Some days, Sam’s ever-present paranoia really takes him by the guts. At least he’s not worried about social services as much anymore: Dean’s bigger now and his injuries look like he’s a punk ass kid, which he is. 

Dean works his jaw and blows a pink-perfect gum bubble. It pops loud, and Sam white-knuckles the wheel.

“What’s up? What’s with the long face?” Dean stretches, grinds his sneakers into the car’s floor and buries his face in his tight leather jacket’s popped collar. Dean suddenly really, really, really wanted to have a brown leather jacket. Because Dad’s got one, a heavy thing, way too big. Sam caught him trying it on one day, and it hung clumsy and thick off Dean’s bony shoulders like he was playing pretend. 

So Sam got Dean one of his own. At least this one fit, even if it did eat up half the money in Sam’s wallet. Dean’s going to grow out of it soon enough, too. But his face gets so stupid happy every time he puts it on, Sam keeps thinking, worth it, worth it—

It’s not often he gets to see that happy little kid anymore. That kid wouldn’t have made a good hunter, and Dean’s filing the youth off himself with sandpaper, leaving scratches behind. 

He’d make a good person, though. The best.

“Stanford?” Dean asks, and his voice shrinks into something small.

“Uh, no, it’s nothing. Had to get the guidance counselor off my back.”

“She thought you could go to Stanford?” Dean frowns. “That’s the big leagues, Sam. Wow.”

Sam gives him a half-hearted shrug. “A shoot for the moon kind of thing, I guess.”

Dean opens his mouth on a half-breath and closes it back up again. 

Sam drops Dean off at the motel and tears the pamphlet into tiny shreds.

-

Dean grows out of the leather jacket and into a fresh batch of new scars and a loud mouth. He’s sixteen now and not a child anymore and Sam’s got no right to tell him what to do and where to go or any of it, honestly, _Sam, get outta my face. Fuck your curfew, I do what I want._

Sam stays awake every night Dean’s out, tick-tock-ing the minutes away with his restless fingers tapping on the table.

Dean discovers the wonders of parties (Sam was never really invited to those when he was still in high school, too nerdydorkynewkid for any of it) and booze (Sam’s not much of a drinker) and … and girls. 

Sam stumbles upon a silver square of a condom in the back pocket of Dean’s jeans while doing laundry. He stands there in the middle of a laundromat, holding it like an idiot, until a lady with a perm practically battle-rams him with her cart full of flower-pattern bedsheets. 

Maybe it doesn’t mean anything, Sam desperately thinks. Maybe he’s carrying it around just in case there’s a chance to, uh, score. Maybe he fills these up with water and throws them at people. Because there’s no way his baby brother, the little chubby-cheeked kid, is all grown now and …

Sam leans on the vibrating laundry machine and runs his free hand through his hair, over and over and over again. He enjoys the company of a lovely conwoman named Denial and the sweet smell of her deception for a few more weeks until he finds Dean tangled up with some pretty young thing on the backseat of the car. Her earrings catch the pink sunset light, and Dean holds her like something precious he’s scared to break.

A wave of nausea hits Sam’s guts.

Neither of them notices Sam, frozen in the motel parking lot. Summer’s scorching hot this year.

Dean used to love pink things. Now his own face is flushed the prettiest of pinks, an o-mouth in a backseat romance with a fruit fly lifespan.

Sam stumbles back, the sky swaying overhead like someone accidentally ran into the bare lightbulb of the sun and it swings back and forth, making black dots of shadows dance in Sam’s vision. 

Dean returns back to their room, smug like the cat that got the cream. Sam buries his face in a lore book and lays the memory to rest somewhere next to the three ways to immobilize a wraith.

-

Sam tutors, pleads and carrot-and-sticks Dean into studying, and even turns a few of his lousy grades into Bs. Dean still can’t be fucked to wax poetic about Shakespeare—“Hey, I like the books alright, I just dunno why people care about dissecting ‘em like frogs!”—but he’s good at crunching numbers. 

Dean rages and thrashes sometimes. This is hard work and sneaking out to bang some nameless, faceless girl is always easier. Comes home wearing second-hand flower perfume and a first-hand whiskey smell. Little wild beast, feral growls and claws out.

Sam pulls rank, watches Dean fold under a well-placed order. Dean always did respect authority. Maybe a little too much, but if Sam can get him to study … can’t be that bad, right? Dean makes long-suffering noises and deep hollows in the notebook where his pen digs gutters.

He seems to quiet down by the time the second half of his senior year hits. Takes shit seriously and even studies by himself in the corner. These kinds of evenings are the best: Sam with his lore, tracking patterns and finding cases, Dean cracking math problems, a warm light, a warm room. Sam lets himself dream of better days: this, just this, forever. Surely, Dean found some quiet happiness in all this. Maybe this time, Sam will get him to run. Not away from Dad. Towards something better.

Sam watches him get his C-laden diploma, five miles to the left of the honor roll, and his chest swells with an unheard of pride. Dean tugs at the tassel of his graduation cap when they pose for the picture, embarrassed by the way Sam yanks him against his side, dude—  
Sam pulls Dean into in a hug after they take the photo, drunk without a drop of alcohol in him. 

“You did so good,” Sam mumbles into Dean’s shoulder once they’re at the car, holding him close again. Dean huffs and puffs to make himself take more space, but he fits into Sam’s arms just as nicely as he did when he was only so big. “I know this was hard, but you did it!”

“Shuddup, Sam. You’re such a girl.” Dean shoves at him, stumbling back, and shakes his head with a laugh. Sam’s eyes grow soft. He squeezes Dean’s shoulder. 

“I mean it. You deserve to pat yourself on the back today. Look at you. This is a big milestone. We should go out. Celebrate.”

He snorts. “I just did this to get you off my case.”

“You… don’t want to keep on with studying? But I thought it was going well.” Sam frowns. Dean shoots him an incredulous smile, eyes rolling back so hard Sam can see the whites flash. 

“No, dumbass. I just knew I’d had to hold on until grad. All that shit you made me do made my brains shrivel, I swear. Now I can actually hunt full-time, thank fuck.”

“Look at me. You’re smart. You could actually—”

“I swear, if you say “go to college”, I’ll break your nose.” Dean exhales noisily, eyes liquor-shiny. It only now hits Sam that Dean smells of booze, again. Probably sneaked a flask in. Sam grabs at the roof of the car to keep himself calm. “I want to hunt. I don’t know if I gotta fingerspell it to you, or, maybe, Morse code would work better?”

“I get it,” Sam says, voice level. “Get in the car.”

“Nah, I was thinking I’ll catch up with my friends.”

“What friends?” Dean has barely gotten enrolled here. “No. We’re going home. You said it yourself, today’s nothing special. Nothing to celebrate.”

“I still wanna go out.”

“Where are you going?”

“Out, geez! Would you like me to draw you a map? Have the secretary fetch my itinerary?” 

“This is a new town, I don’t know these people, you aren’t going. Get in the car.”

Dean laughs all over again, still-bony shoulders shaking with laughter. No matter how much food Sam’s been bringing to his hungry, hungry little bird back home, Dean ate it all up and demanded more. “And you think you can stop me? Serious?”

“Like I said, I can’t let you out with some random people when you’re drunk. Something could happen to you.”

“Dude, you’re insane. You can’t mother-hen me like that. Look, I’ve been hanging with this chick I like. I was thinking, maybe tonight I’ll get lucky... You get me, Sammy.” 

No, he doesn’t. Sex’s nothing special. Sex just leaves you feeling stupid the morning after. And he hates it when Dean goes out, too, stumbles into the room looking a little too happy, a little too well-fucked, a little too distant. Sam couldn’t grab him if he wanted to, his fingers would close on thin air. 

“Get in the car!” Sam finally raises his voice and slams the roof. Dean winces, he loves the damn thing. Would spend every weekend elbows-deep in its greasy machinery entrails. 

“Fuck. Off.” Dean punctuates it with a step forward, tilts his head back all defiant-like. He grabs Sam by the hand, brings it to his throat. “You’re suffocating me, dude. I’m hanging out with people, okay? Normal people. So you got nothin’ to sweat over.” A shove, sloppy and drunken and not enough to make Sam budge. “None of them could take me.”

_(But someone did almost take you once.)_

“Get in the car,” Sam repeats, voice a broken record. This is hard, so very hard. Raising Dean is like pulling teeth, and every night, they grow right back and Sam has to take the pliers out again, say open wide.

“No fucking way.” Dean shakes his head, and this is where Sam has had enough of it all.

“Get in or I’ll tell Dad what you’ve been up to. The drinking, the sex, the partying…” 

That gets Dean’s attention, eyes wide and face growing pale. Of course, the mention of Dad has him at heel-click attention. But where is he, huh? It’s his son’s graduation, and he can’t be bothered to put the latest hunt on pause.

“What? I’ve been on my best behavior these past coupla’ months!” Dean gasps out. “I’ve been studying non-stop! That’s not fair, Sam!”

If Sam closes his eyes, he sees it all, every horror scenario on the branch, every way Dean can end up hurt or laid or hurt while laid. Dean-Dean-Dean, glassy-eyed and mouth agape in every scenario. Sex’s like a little death, at least it is for Sam when Dean is the one having it.

Maybe he should stop for a second and inspect his reasons why, but, uh—obviously, he wants Dean to avoid getting an STD or knocking someone up.

Dean’s his only friend, Dean’s his life mission, and he’s slipping right out of Sam’s grasp, Sam’s shaking fingers.

Dean yanks the cap off his head and hurls it at Sam, hard. It bounces off Sam’s chest and falls onto the wet pavement. 

“Fuck you,” he spits. He doesn’t slam the door of the car—it’s his baby, after all—but he sure as hell closes it very firmly. 

The only reason Sam’s even here is because of Dean. Dean’s wasted on hunting. All that beauty, all that brain, all that kindness, all going rotten.

Sam starts the car. 

Dean pulls the flask from the folds of the robe, materializing out of thin air like a regular Copperfield. Sam picks his battles and doesn’t fight this one. Dean nurses off it for far too long and when he pulls away, he’s got booze running down his chin, catching the glitter of the streetlamps, flicker-flicker-flicker. He rubs the back of his palm across his lips and closes his eyes.

Sam stares at Dean’s parted mouth for a second too long and a loud, screeching beep has him desperately twisting the wheel to right the car on the road. 

“Learn to fuckin’ drive, asswipe,” Dean grits out.

Sam thinks he’s beautiful even then. 

It comes as a warm thought that plunges into the icy chill when it finally sinks in, just how wrong it is.

Maybe, just maybe, Sam has been the rotten one all along. 

-

Something gives, and all that Sam’s been holding at bay floods him at once. It took him so damn long to realize that he wasn’t just annoyed with Dean hooking up, no, he was jealous. So jealous it acid-ate through his insides. 

Dean’s got a cinnamon dusting of freckles sprinkled all over him. Dean’s especially pretty in the early morning, flushed pink, his face still innocent without the wary lines of the scowl he wears around Sam, more often than not. Dean’s got calloused hands and soft lips.

Sam’s not supposed to look.

Sam looks. Sam stares. Sam wants so bad, it sends something in his heart aflutter, and all the love songs in the world start to make sense. Which is nice. But it also makes “Flowers in the Attic” make sense, and Sam never wanted that one to make sense.

He stays away, under the guise of their argument. Dean’s not exactly feeling warm and cuddly either, glaring daggers at Sam, the very image of a bitchy teenager. Sam never could put a name to that silly-string gooey feeling that settled in the pit of his stomach around Dean sometimes, but now he knows.

It’s heartache.

Puberty made Dean even more of a looker, sharp edges where he used to be baby-soft, taller and broadert. 

Sam hates each and every man who looked at Dean as if they'd like to eat him whole. He hates himself most of all. 

Dean’s got a crumpled-up diploma and a pink scar across his chest from a werewolf. Dean circles _occupation: monster hunter_ in his career day handout. 

Sam’s hollow on the inside. Sam’s got an echo in his head, repeating Dean’s name over and over again. Sam’s rattled. Sam’s filthy. Sam’s so many things, and none of them good. No one who looks at their little brother and thinks about spreading him wide can be called good.

At least Dean has no idea. 

That’s the one thing Sam keeps telling himself. As long as Dean doesn’t know and Sam doesn’t give himself away, it’s like it’s not there. And, well, heartache … who doesn’t have heartache every now and then? 

-

Dean taps his sneakers against the dusty-grey carpet, a restless leg syndrome Morse code no one’s supposed to be picking up on. 

“Dad mentioned his hunter buddy who went missing a few years ago. I think I found the pattern.” Dean circles another cut-out. “Look, Sam. Every July someone goes missing ‘round this town. Not a single body has turned up since. We’re nearby, so we should go. Investigate.”

“No, we shouldn’t.” Sam shakes his head, sitting up on the bed. “You can bring this hunt up with Dad when he comes back.”

“Who knows when he’ll come back? July might be long over by then!” Dean huffs.

“Well, we’re not charging out there all by ourselves, Dean. We don’t know what it is, and without Dad taking point ...”

“We could research it all by ourselves!” Dean hops to his feet, paces. “We got this. We’ve got, like, a decade of hunting experience.”

“More like a hunting internship. Anyway, no, this is too dangerous. Too many unknowns.” Sam shakes his head again and blows hair out of his face. Dean sizzles like a boiling kettle and grinds his teeth. Sam hates when Dean does it, jaw locking and Winchester-grade stubbornness kicking in. 

“You’re an unknown. You’re so lame, oh god. Are you scared? That’s it, right? You’re a giant wuss, Sam.”

Yeah, Sam’s scared. For Dean. He returns to his book, but Dean definitely doesn’t get the hint. He ends up planting himself right in front of Sam’s chair.

“You keep saying how dangerous the world is, but you don’t wanna hunt to make it safer for other people, either,” Dean huffs, moving in. “You’re a coward, Sam. A coward.”

“It’s dumb to jump headfirst into danger half-cocked. Especially since another hunter already went missing there.” Sam looks up, meeting Dean’s eyes head-on. “We need a plan.”

“You can’t just plan for everything. Sometimes you gotta take risks!”

“Not when it’s a life or death situation!”

“ _Everything_ is a life or death situation for us!” 

“Exactly, so we always have to think twice. Any hunt could go bad.”

“Well, a car could hit me any day, but I don’t stay home under my blanket ‘cause of that.”

“Dean, enough.” Sam shakes his head, closing his book. “We’re not going anywhere without Dad.”

“Funny, you only want him around to save our hides if shit hits the fan. Never for him.”

Sam glares. “ _Funny_ , it’s almost like he’s never around for anything else! Where was he when your graduation happened? Or any of your football games? Or—”

“All of that was bullshit, anyway,” Dean mutters under his breath.

“No, it wasn’t! You just don’t want to admit Dad misses some pretty important stuff. So you act like it doesn’t matter.”

“Shut up, Sam. You’re afraid to do anything without Dad around giving you the okay! God, you’re so freaking annoying with all these goddamn lectures!” Dean whips around, and if they had a normal house where each of them had a separate room, he’d be storming off to his and slamming the door. But they’re stuck in a flamingo-themed hot pink-and-green motel room, and it’s dark outside.

Dean never turns in that early, but his stubborn streak swallows his night owl streak whole. He angrily yanks his shoes off and climbs under the blanket, burying his face into the tobacco-scented pillow.

“Dean …”

“Bite me,” grumps a muffled, bratty voice. Sam sighs.

“Night, Dean,” he says, keeping it soft. Dean makes a disgruntled hedgehog noise, which Sam chooses to take as “’night, Sammy”.

Sam turns the lamp off. Dean twists around like he wants to say something, but the night stays still and silent.

-

Sam wakes up to an empty bed. Empty room, too. Dean’s duffle is gone. 

The car is gone. 

Dean folded all too easily. Sam’s sick worry hits him all over again, his legs numb and his stomach twisted in knots. Dean didn’t leave a note but his research from last night’s still scattered on the table.

Had Sam agreed, at least Dean wouldn’t be out there alone. Sam flips through the papers so fast he earns himself a papercut. People vanishing on the stretch of a highway running through the woods right here, in Oregon, like Dean said. Sam opens a map and circles with a Sharpie the ground to cover. A couple small towns fall into the circle. He could start looking for Dean there. 

The parking lot is awash in a murky gold of a sunrise. Sam leans onto a silver sedan, nonchalant, and shimmies it open with a coat hanger. There’s a pink fuzzy bunny hanging from the rearview, and Sam pulls it off and throws it on the passenger seat. He hates driving with something bouncing back and forth in his vision. The bunny stares up at the car’s ceiling with its googly eyes.

Sam hits gas and the wheels squeal at the sharp turn.

He slows down at the first location. It’s a one-horse town falling apart at the seams, and it doesn’t even have a motel, just a bunch of houses on either side of the country road. Sam drives up to the grocery store and shows the old man working the counter the graduation picture of Dean, this is my brother and he’s ran off on his own.

The man doesn’t remember Dean, but he does half-heartedly try to sell Sam some lotto tickets. A fly walks across the glass till, sleepy like everyone here. 

Sam crosses the town off the map. Dean probably just drove on. 

The next town is slightly bigger, a splattering of life where the previous one was a sprinkling. It’s worn-out and roadside-dusty, the fences crooked and a big forest swallowing up the southern part. The shining jewel of the town is a freshly renovated restaurant-with-a-bar called “The Pioneer Saloon”. It sounds so Dean-like, Sam parks in front of it even though the Impala is nowhere to be seen. He pushes the double doors open to a dimly lit Wild West-esque joint. 

The young barman with a five o’clock shadow is wiping a glass with a rag, leaning on the bar. The waitress in a cowboy hat and a short denim skirt pops the gum she’s chewing. Sam’s the only client in this entire place.

“Howdy. Welcome to The Pioneer Saloon, would you like a table or a booth?” she says, batting her eyelashes at Sam.

“Uh, no. I’m looking for my brother. He ran away from home.” Sam pulls the glossy photo out of his pocket. She looks surprised, eyebrows shooting up. 

“Yeah, I’ve seen him. He had a soup, fries and a burger, and drove on,” she says, growing slightly pink at the peaks of her cheekbones. “He has a really pretty car, too.”

“Did you see where he was heading, uh ...” Sam reads the nametag, “Katie?” 

“That way. Yeah. I’m pretty sure it was that way. Down the road and out of here.” She pokes in the direction of the road and waves in the direction where Sam came from. Sam frowns. Dean turned around and drove back? Did he see something here that made him realize that this wasn’t a case? Or did he want to go back to the motel and apologize? But there was no way they could’ve passed each other on the road without Sam noticing. The Impala is really, really hard to miss.

“Are you sure he left?” Sam asks again, clutching the photo in his fingers. 

She nods furiously. A bit too furiously. Sam narrows his eyes.

“Let’s try this again,” he lowers his voice and pulls out his FBI badge. “If I check the cameras, what will I see?” There aren’t any traffic cams in this neck of woods, but she doesn’t have to know.

Katie pales. “Well, I’m not entirely sure where exactly he went…” she mutters, taking a step back.

“Really? Why would you lie, then?” Sam advances, but the familiar sound of a gun being cocked stops him frozen in his tracks. He carefully looks over at the bar, where the noise came from, and, of course, the barman has a shotgun out. The guy walks up closer, keeping Sam at gunpoint. 

“Scott, he’s a fed,” Katie squeaks out, looking over at the barman. “He’s looking for the guy that passed by here. In the morning.” She stresses ‘passed by’, her gaze darting from Sam to the barman and back.

“I can show you my credentials if you’d like.”

“You’re a fed, huh?” Tongue click. “‘Cause you don’t sound like a fed. And you don’t look like one. I’ve never seen a fed with hair like that. You’re a hunter.”

Sam stays very, very still as the barrel presses into his spine.

“You’re here for your buddy, aren’t you? Well, we’ll take you right to him.”

A sharp pain shoots through Sam’s skull. The floor rushes up as his knees buckle. 

-

“Sammy.” Something drives into his side unceremoniously. “Hey, Sam. Man. Wake up. C’mon!” Another sharp jab under his ribs. Sam slowly blinks awake, squints into the darkness. He’s in a cellar, among canned products and pickles. Hands tied, ankles tied, great. The air tastes wet and underground-smelly. 

“Dean,” he manages, slowly rolling onto his side. Bile shoots up to his throat and he swallows harshly to keep it all down. “Dean?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” Dean shuffles closer the best he can with his own limbs tied up, leans on the wall next to Sam. Sam makes out his grimy, scared face in the dark, and exasperation, mixed together with relief, floods him. “Fuck. Those two up there? If I heard it right, they sacrifice people.” He blinks slowly and the words come with a split-second pause. Drugged up. 

“Sacrifice people? Why?”

“They forgot to give me the ‘ten things you need to know before we sacrifice your ass’ pamphlet, Sam,” Dean huffs, working his shoulders to try and get out of the ties. 

“Don’t get clever with me. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t even be here! Hunting without back-up is crazy.”

“Maybe you should’ve come with, then!” 

“Maybe you shouldn’t have run off and got yourself kidnapped!”

“The girl lured me in, okay? Sheesh, you’re right here with me, idiot,” Dean snorts. Heavy footsteps thump across the floor above them, sending wooden dust down into the cellar like snow. 

“Fuck. Look, man. I’m sorry I went alone,” Dean finally says, fidgeting against the wall. He sags against Sam a little. “I thought I could handle it, and—yeah. Bit off more than I could chew. Got you in hot water, too.” He looks away, inspecting the floor very attentively. 

“It’s fine,” Sam says tersely, even though it’s not freaking fine. They have bigger fish to fry, though. The cellar door swings open and a couple creaks later, the barman—Scott—steps down. He yanks Dean to his feet by his shirt. Dean shudders, struggling to stay upright with the length of rope linking his ankles. “C’mon. Let’s walk.”

“No,” Sam grits out, trying to crawl over to where Dean is. A bad man trying to take Dean away somewhere where Sam will never see him again is too familiar of a scenario. “Fuck no.”

“Don’t know what to do with you just yet. It only takes one victim a year.” He sizes Sam up. “Hell, I think you’d make a better sacrifice. Meatier. All that muscle.” Dean’s face gets a pinch of an offended look added to the horrified mix. “Get up. We’ll decide when we’re there.”

Katie follows, armed with a shotgun. They get marched through the large house, over the fancy carpets and out back, past the backyard where the Impala is standing. Dean must’ve been pissed they kidnapped him and his beloved car, Sam thinks, fleetingly, grabbing at this thought to keep himself somewhat sane. 

Scott nudges Sam on, steering all of them into the blue, thick woods. The moon frames Dean’s face in silver light, and even though his lips are pressed into a valiant, thin line, there’s a visible shimmer of sweat on his face. Sometimes Sam forgets his little brother’s only seventeen.

“It’ll be okay,” Sam mutters, taking a moment to lean in closer under the guise of swaying on unsteady feet. 

“I know,” Dean throws over his shoulder, tense. 

“We’re here,” Scott announces and squints, giving them both a once-over. “Yeah, we’re taking the tall one.”

“What are you gonna do to him?!” Dean struggles against Katie’s grip, but the roofie left him weak, movements sloppy. “Let me go, you fucking bitch—”

“Don’t talk to my sister like that, you hunter trash!” Scott snarls.

“You got a problem with hunters or something?”

“Damn right I do.” He shoves Sam to the ground, facedown, and grabs at Dean’s shirt. 

“Why? Care to share?”

“You people act like you’re tough shit, but when push comes to the shove? Run away with your tail tucked between your legs.” 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sam snaps, rolling over to his side. Dean’s got his mouth open, a smartass remark on the tip of his tongue, no doubt. God, he just doesn’t know when to quit.

“Hunters got our parents killed. Said they’d get our family rid of this curse…” Katie starts, but quiets down at Scott’s glare.

“It’s not a curse. It’s a blessing,” Scott pulls out a clay amulet hanging around his neck, engraved with a long curvy line, looping and twisting like a mountain road and taps it twice with his finger. “All the good luck you can have.”

“Yeah, for the low price of one murder a year? That’s a stupid friggin’ deal to make. You don’t mess with shit like that.” Dean scoffs, and Sam glares at him, incredulous. There’s stalling, and then there’s egging them on.

“God, do you ever shut up? It wasn’t us who made it. Our ancestors did. Summoned a shadow monster, like, ages ago. Our parents wanted to stop.” Scott’s nostrils flare, and he kicks at Dean’s side. Sam winces in pain. “Hired a coupla’ hunters to get rid of it. Guess how that one worked out.” 

He turns around to grab Sam’s shoulders and starts dragging him over to the large oak tree nearby. 

“No!” Dean screams out, struggling all over again. Sam’s never seen him that shaky, that unhinged. “No, fuck—no! No!” 

Katie looks uneasy at the commotion. “We don’t have to go through with this. If we just get rid of ...”

“And lose all we have? No way! The town’s dying slow. We’ll end up just like the rest of them, living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to buy food. Hell, we might end up out on the streets. I can’t let that happen to you.” 

“It’s getting angrier. You saw what happened to the last man we gave to it!” Katie whips around, fingers curled into fists. “It hates being tied to Earth and we’re the ones keeping it here.”

“Well, it’s gotta suck it up. We all got our problems. C’mere, help me paint him up.” Scott pulls out a bottle of ink, pushing Sam against the tree, hand splayed on his chest. 

“Let him go!” Dean yells when Scott uncaps the bottle. “Stop! Take me. You need a sacrifice this bad? Take me.”

“Dean, no.” Sam snaps. Dean just couldn’t keep his mouth shut, could he? Couldn’t let Sam take the brunt of it all. “No!”

“It likes the quiet ones more. You gonna be quiet?”

“If you let him go,” Dean says, voice steely. “Let him go.”

“Deal.” Scott tosses Sam back on the ground and gives him a hearty kick when Sam tries to crawl. He walks back over to Dean and grabs his face to paint an X on his cheek with his own finger. The ink rolls down Dean’s face like jet-black tears. “X marks the spot.”

“Dean.” Sam desperately feels the air with his fingers, finally grabbing ahold of the end of the frayed rope. “Dean—”

“It’s my fault we’re here.” Dean looks over at Sam as Katie loops a thick length of rope around the tree. “All of this, it’s my fault. So, y’know, it’s okay. Guess I learned my lesson now, Sammy.” He smiles, quick and desperate. “Tell Dad I‘m sorry, too.” His voice breaks, and so does Sam’s sorry, sorry heart. Dean glances up at Scott’s chest pointedly, then stares back at Sam. 

Sam’s got to get to the amulet. Yeah, sounds like a plan. He doesn’t need words to get Dean. But he’s going to need his hands if he’s going to jump Scott. “I’m not telling him anything ‘cause you ain’t dying here!” Sam grits out, working the knot.

Scott checks his wristwatch. The earth rumbles, once, twice, and Sam’s fingers rush even quicker, c’mon, c’mon! Clouds fall over the moon, thick and heavy, only the slightest glimmer of silver remaining. Sam twists his neck to catch a glimpse of Dean, and his stomach lurches at the sight. Something’s uncurling and compressing with a squelching noise. A barely-there shadow makes the air quiver like it does sometimes on an especially hot summer day. 

Sam squints and makes out its wide-open jaws and moving suckers, a slimy, slippery thing curling around the tree Dean’s tied to. It’s making sucking, wet noises, like someone smacking their lips over and over again.

“Fuck!” Sam yanks at the knot, and it gives. A little more. 

“I can’t watch this,” Katie mumbles. “I’m—I’m going home.” She storms off, and Scott waves his hand, practically leisurely, watching Dean’s panic like a good movie. 

The knot gives out to the sound of Dean’s blood-curdling scream. The monster locks its jaw around his leg, its mouth translucent so Sam sees it tear at Dean’s flesh, almost tedious, like it’s happening in slow-motion. The grass grows dark with blood.

Sam pulls himself free and yanks at Scott’s leg, pulling him onto the ground. He slips on wet grass and lands with a heavy thud. Sam scrambles on top of him and clocks him hard, pure hunter’s instincts that have been honed into scalpel-sharp precision since he was six. Sharp, quick punches to beat him into a dazed state. Sam grabs the clay necklace, bloody-knuckled, and snaps it in half. 

Just a hunch, but it seems to work. The monster stops tearing at Dean and raises its head. It moves back, suckers twitching blindly as the thing tries to make sense of what just happened. It grows very, very quiet and sniffs the air, turning its head back and forth between Dean and Scott and Sam. A beat of silence, and lip-smacking sounds pick up again, growing hungrier by the second. Fuck, it’s going to have its dinner, one way or another.

Sam crawls over to Dean and wipes his cheek, smudging blood and ink over his face. The monster makes up its mind and lunges at Scott, growling. It grabs him by the leg and swallows him whole in one huge gulp.

Sam pulls out his knife and slices through the ropes tied around Dean’s body. Dean whimpers in pain, squeezing his eyes shut. The monster goes up in clouds of thick, heavy smoke. The air tastes like a forest fire. 

“Dean. Dean, stay with me.” Sam shakes him by the shoulder, pulling him in his arms. Dean’s so small when he’s not puffing himself up like a baby bird, trying to take more room.Hollow bones, parted mouth. Dean’s face is sticky with sweat, eyes glazed over. Sam doesn’t even want to look at his leg, mangled and tattered, but he has to, he has to. “Dean, hey.”

“Sammy.” Dean’s fingers grab a fistful of Sam’s shirt. “Hey. ‘Tis is but a scratch.” He laughs, coughs, closes his eyes. 

Sam chokes on Dean’s name.

-

No bad man was supposed to take Dean away ever again.

Sam knows the hospital waiting rooms by heart. Knows the shit coffee, the plastic chairs, the smell, sterile meets death.

Sam’s a pro at falling asleep in a chair.

Sam leaves voicemail after voicemail, begging John to come. He doesn’t know what John could even do, but at least he wouldn’t be waiting alone.

Sam clasps his fingers and prays. Maybe he’s dirty, maybe he’s undeserving, but Dean’s everything that’s good in the world. Dean’s his only friend. 

Dean can’t leave him.

Sam hopes the heavenly father has better reception than his real one.

-

Sam looks for a change of clothes for when Dean will wake up. And he will wake up, Sam knows, because he will. There’s no other way this can go. Sam won’t let it.

Dean’s duffle is still lying on the floor of the Impala, where Sam swiped it on to put Dean into the backseat. The leather’s still covered in blood. Sam doesn’t wipe it off because Dean has to do it himself.

Dean’s duffle is his whole life packed into one bag. 

A couple of AC/DC and Metallica tapes. Photos, the same faces over and over: Sam, Dean, Dad. Folded plaid. Folded denim. Folded canvas. Spare socks. Small, hotel-sized bottles of shampoo and shower gel. A postcard with Grand Canyon on it. A well-read copy of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” with notes on the margins and a folded page corner to indicate where he stopped this time around. A pack of condoms. A bottle of water and a protein bar. A skin mag. Band-aids. A sharp-blade knife. Extra bullets.

Sam’s fingers hit something in the lining of the bag, and he pulls it out, too. A bottle of pink nail polish with a neon green tag announcing it cost $1.50. And there’s something else there, too. It’s a teddy bear. His bow has gone frayed with age, and one of his eyes got lost somewhere, but it’s a teddy bear, the one Sam found for Dean in that sales bin many, many moons ago.

Sam holds the bear close to his chest. And if he cries into the fur a little, well, this teddy has been cried onto before. He knows how to keep a secret.

-

Dean wakes up in three days and eight hours, not that Sam’s been counting. It takes almost another hour before they let Sam see him. Dean’s face is almost blending in with the washed-out hospital pillowcase, and he’s hooked up to enough machines to look like a part of a sci-fi cyborg organism, but he’s breathing and alive.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean mutters, voice raw from the tubing they finally took out of his throat. He’s drugged-out, again, his smile loopy.

“You’re an idiot!” Sam stomps his foot against the hospital floor tile instead of a greeting. “You ran off! You got hurt, you...”

“I fucking get it, Sam. I’m sorry,” Dean looks away, to the window, face awash in the pinks of the sunset. “I’m sorry. I just—Dad woulda been proud if I got these suckers.” Barely audible, like something he’s ashamed of.

“Dad would tear you a new one for going off alone! Geez, Dean, he doesn’t want you dead, you dumbass hero.” Sam plops down on the chair next to Dean’s bed, unwashed hair falling in his face. 

“You tried to sacrifice yourself for me. You could’ve gotten killed. You could’ve lost your fuckin’ leg, and you said, you said that if you couldn’t hunt anymore…” Sam’s lips quiver treacherously. He bites back tears. “I mean, what would I do without you?”

“Sam. Geez, man. It was my bad we were there. And, uh… knew you’d come save my ass. I was drugged, you weren’t. Clearly, you were the guy for the job.” Dean scrunches up his nose. “Dude, you still remember that? I’d never pop my top, not if you were around. I … I didn’t mean that. I was just a kid.”

Like you still ain’t a kid, Sam thinks, but then again, no. Dean’s all grown now. “You didn’t?”

“No. ‘Course not. You’d go batshit without me around to keep you in check,” he snorts, just throws a laugh in there to shave off some of the gravitas of what he’s saying. “Man, you think you’re the only man on a mission here? I wanna protect you too.”

“Whatever drugs they’ve got you on, I need some to go. For whenever you’re being a dick,” Sam says, voice growing stupid warm like a sunny day.

“Shuddup.” Dean weakly slaps his arm, rattling the IV drip. “I couldn’t let you get hurt on my behalf, man.”

“Don’t run off anymore. Whatever danger you’re charging into, I’m coming with.”

Dean nods, jerky. “Fuck, when he was ‘bout to sacrifice you I … I … I get it now. Why you’re scared shitless all the time.”

“Hey. No, it’s okay.” Sam never, ever wanted Dean to understand it, that icy fear that ran through him at the mere thought of Dean hurt. “These drugs really fucked you up, huh?”

“Stupid opioids,” Dean mutters under his breath. “I wanna sleep.”

“Okay. You should get some rest.” Sam stands up to go, to give Dean some space, but Dean reaches out to grab at Sam’s wrist. 

“No. Stay,” he breathes, little-kid needy, and Sam thinks back to the teddy bear tucked next to the nail polish, tucked next to the sharp blades and silver bullets.

Thinks about the little chubby-cheeked kid he didn’t lose forever, apparently.

Sam sits back down, but Dean still stares, like he did when he was little. He took a long damn time learning to talk, so Sam learned to understand him without words. Dean looking like that means please. Sam wonders, for a moment, please what? but then realizes what.

“Scooch,” he says, climbing into the bed next to Dean. It’s way too small for the two of them, which is good—there’s an excuse to wrap Dean up in his arms. Dean’s chest rises and falls with steady breaths, and Sam takes a moment to marvel at it.

Dean’s sleeping to the steady whirring sounds of machines. 

Sam kisses Dean’s hair and gets away with it.

-

“Son of a bitch!” Clang, clang, bottles of shampoo and shower gel crashing in the tub. Sam whips in the bathroom’s direction, always alert. He bursts in, ready to take down whatever creepy-crawly thing jumped Dean at his most vulnerable.

Turned out, he just fell on his way to the bathtub, sprawled on the tile like a newborn foal, nude, his healthy leg bent almost pinup-flirty. Sam stares for a moment too long and Dean covers himself up with a towel, scrambling—panicking, even. Sam stops looking, face heating up as he stares into the mirror, wait, no, he can still see Dean in there, so he looks at the opposite wall. Inspects the mildew patterns. My, what pretty contemporary art we have here today.

“Fuckin’ stupid gimp leg.” It’s weak right now, barely carrying Dean’s weight, making him shuffle and hobble places. And it’s looking pretty gnarly after the shadow thing tore into it, even now that it’s healed up a little. Scarring all over, in almost-scaly patches, a bright pink meshing into white in some places. 

“At least you’re expected to make a full recovery.” Sam shrugs. Dean picks at one of the scabs, and Sam swats his hand away.

“Yeah. ‘Sides, chicks dig scars,” he mutters under his breath, almost like he’s trying to convince himself. Sure, he had plenty of scars before, but there’s a difference between a zigzag of scar here and there and looking like your whole leg has been fed into a woodchipper. He looks away, almost like he’s embarrassed to let Sam see him like this.

For what it’s worth, Sam thinks Dean’s beautiful any which way, but admitting to that isn’t going to make Dean feel any more comfortable. Dean slowly scrambles to his feet, swaying on the slippery tile. Shadows under his eyes, bedhair and a skinny jut of his hipbones right above the loosely tied towel. Sam sees nothing but pretty.

Rays of morning light stream into the bathroom through the small window near the ceiling. Dean’s hair is golden where it catches the sun. Sam wants to count every single freckle on his body, trail his finger over them to make sure he doesn’t miss any. 

“Of course they do. Do you need help getting in the shower?” Sam offers Dean his arm. Dean doesn’t say yes, just grips tight.

Sam’s rotten soul twists and aches when Dean leans in close, balancing against him.

Dean’s eyelashes flutter, and so does Sam’s heart.

“Sam?” he asks from behind the shower curtain as Sam’s about to leave, and Sam turns around, yes, yes, what? What do you want, what do you need, don’t you dare drown in the bathtub or slip and hit your head or, or, or—

“Nothing. Nevermind.”

Sam stares at his silhouette behind the semi-transparent curtain for a second. He leaves with the first drops of water hitting the bathtub floor.

-

They sleep together every night after that, falling back in the long-forgotten routine. There’s no conversation about it, no nothing. They simply fall into the same bed after the long day.

Junkyard kids, dandelions burst through the pavement, stems intertwined—forever.

The words Sam can’t say stay crammed in his lungs, bitten back time after time.

While Dean’s recovering, he doesn’t go out. Doesn’t go anywhere. Sleeps a lot under Sam’s watchful eye and a lot of pills. Sam sleeps better, too, but a part of him also hates it. The price for his calm had to be Dean getting hurt. It just had to be. 

Dean nestles up close in his sleep, where Sam’s heart lies, in between his ribs, in between his arms.

“I like it,” Dean says in the middle of a breakfast, sunny-side up. “When it’s us.”

Sam nods, short, desperate, and uses Dean stumbling on the way back to bed as an excuse to wrap his arms around Dean’s waist. Dean doesn’t even flinch, just turns around and grabs at Sam’s shirt until his knuckles grow white.

This is such an ordinary day. Sun scattered at their feet, Dean’s face sweet-pink, the air heavy.

“How’s your leg?” Sam’s the first to take a sledgehammer to the fragile silence. 

“Been better. Whatever,” Dean mutters. “Worth it.”

Sam exhales, snapping right into the lecture mode. It’s hard to be everything sometimes: a caretaker, a big brother, a best friend, but he’s got this. “No, it’s not worth it. No case’s worth that—”

“Not the case, dumbass.” Dean shakes his head. “You. Beats having you limping around.” A pause. “You’d be such a little bitch about it.”

“Like you’re such a joy! Sent me on a food run last night ‘cause we ran out of M&Ms and you just had to have some.”

“Yeah, but you actually went, so who’s the real sucker here?” Dean’s eyes shine, and Sam’s got both arms around Dean and he’s so in trouble over here.

“Considering I have to hold you up so you don’t fall, it’s still you.” Sam sticks out his tongue.

“Oooh, real mature.”

“Look who’s talking.”

Dean stays still and very quiet all of a sudden. There he is, in his stupid track pants and mismatched socks and a hand-me-down T-shirt that went threadbare and gray with too many washes, Sam’s idiotic little brother that he’d die for in a heartbeat.

He’s been holding Dean for far too long, and he’s pretty sure his hands are sticking to Dean’s sides with sweat, but Dean’s shown no indication that he wants to get away. Just stands still and watches Sam like he’s never seen Sam before. Like he’s just getting an idea of who Sam is. Like he looks at the car whenever he props the hood open to check up on it—her, Dean would insist.

Sam came so, so close to losing him. When he’d driven Dean to the hospital, he was barely breathing, paler than any ghost Sam’s ever seen, skin clammy and cold, limp in Sam’s arms as Sam ran up the hospital stairs, two at a time. 

He stares at Dean now, breathing, alive, and he’s never really had a breakdown in the light of day, too scared to see what it would look like without the night shielding him. But something in his chest bubbles up and explodes in sudden bizarre laughter, shoulders shaking with fits of giggles until they shake with tears.

“Sammy?” Dean asks, unsure and so different from his usual gruff and tough. “Man, c’mon—what is it?”

You’re not dead, Sam thinks, god, there were so many ways you could’ve gone, so many ways you could’ve stopped breathing, but you made it through every single one of them.

Sam’s mouth tastes of salt.

Dean tip-toes, arms around Sam’s neck, and Sam rushes to hold him up so he wouldn’t fuck up his leg even more. 

Dean moves in, and Sam does too. They meet in the middle.

Takes him a moment to register they’re kissing, but they are, urgent and desperate like someone is going to interrupt and oh god the door’s locked, right? Sam pulls away just a bit to check, yes, locked, with the chain thrown on, too, and Dean chases his lips, hot and heavy. Sam pulls him up, arms looped around Dean’s thighs, spinning them in an attempt to get to the bed where they collapse, a pile of clumsy limbs, searching and touching and squeezing. Dean licks into Sam’s mouth, running his tongue against the ridges, yep, yep, that’s—that’s a kiss. That’s a big damn kiss. That’s the best kiss ever. Not just out of the ones Sam’s had, but in the world. He knows for sure because there’s no way a person can feel happier than he does now. Dean’s fingers squeeze around his arm and Dean pins him down, as though Sam would ever dream about going anywhere.

“You kissed me,” Dean mutters when they stop for a breath. “Holy shit.”

“Pretty sure you kissed me first.”

“Pretty sure Han shot first, too. Don’t start with the revisionist history.” Dean snorts and then he’s laughing, loud and earnest, face pressed into Sam’s shoulder and he’s not running away. Sam feels bad about how he truly, really doesn’t feel bad about any of this.

Dean tilts his head up and his lips are back on Sam’s, well-practiced and demanding. No trembling virgins waiting to be defiled here, but Sam’s not looking for one, either. 

Dean kisses Sam again and again and again.

Sam pays him back in kind.

-

John comes back in a few days. Dean’s face lights up the moment John crosses the threshold, and he hobbles over to his father. John admonishes Sam for not keeping a close enough eye on his brother.

Like it’s business as usual. Except it’s not. Dean’s at the stove again. John’s got a newspaper open, marker circling the suspicious death on page three. A happy little family. Father, brother and me makes three. 

Sam’s a magazine cut-out slapped smack dab in the middle of it all. 

And yet, even though the guilt gnaws on his insides, Dean’s fingertips brushing over his wrist—always the tease—melts it down, like silver into bullets, little deaths ready to bloom in Sam’s chest and boom in his stomach.  
-

Sam’s lungs are full of smoke and his shoes are covered in clumps of grave dirt. The police sirens still echo in his ears. Talk about a close call. Dean’s beaming, like getting caught for grave desecration and trespassing is so fun to him.

“Whew! That was awesome.” Dean fist-pumps and tugs his jacket off, then his plaid. Tosses both on the bed and follows after with a content groan. Awesome isn’t the word Sam would use. His fingers are still adrenaline-shaking from the death grip on the steering wheel. 

“Well, we didn’t get caught,” Sam concedes as Dean wipes the grime off his face with his red-and-black plaid. Sam steps out of his boots. They really need a cleaning, but that can wait until tomorrow. His heart’s racing, still unaware they’re safe now. “That part is, uh, pretty awesome.”

“Have you seen you drive tonight? That was the awesome part. Pedal to the metal like that...” Dean’s voice grows more and more excited as he talks. He meets Sam’s eyes with his own, wide and giddy, falling just shy of cartoon stars popping up in them. 

Dean’s got a well-curated car magazines collection, can spend hours fine-tuning the Impala’s oily guts, and takes her out for a spin whenever he can. Technically, Dad gave the car to Sam, but Dean’s the one that’s lovesick for it. So Dean babbling on like that about how badass this was? That’s some high praise right there.

The corners of Sam’s lips twitch up in a smile. He gives Dean a grateful nod before heading to the bathroom. Or trying to, because all of a sudden, Dean’s fingers are in the loops of his jeans, the heavy weight of him plastered to Sam’s back. 

“I’m sweaty all over, dude,” Sam mutters warningly. Dean’s shoulders move against Sam’s back in a shrug, his fingers already digging into Sam’s belt. The clasp is hard to pop open from that angle, and Dean exhales loudly, frustrated.

“Don’t care. Kinda hot.” 

Sam undoes the stubborn belt himself and whips around.

Dean’s eyes are shining. Always been looking up at Sam, hobbling after him on short legs when they were kids. And even now, post his growth spurt, he’s still shorter. Always gonna be the little brother. 

Dean’s finger grasp on Sam’s sides tightens up. “C’mon. I want…” he all but pleads already, and there’s something almost heartsick hiding behind the lust-lilt of his voice. Reaches out to bury his hand in Sam’s hair, the movement tender in spite of the pent-up need compressed between their bodies like a tight coil. 

Dean’s hand shifts lower to rest on Sam’s neck, on the very spot where his pulse twitches a vein over and over again.

“Yeah. I got you,” Sam breathes, gentle. 

“Sap—” Sam cuts Dean off with another kiss, his teeth teasing Dean’s bottom lip. He licks into Dean’s mouth, where Dean still tastes of soda he’s been chugging while they were waiting in the car for it to get dark enough to go dig up the grave. Who knew the local guard was such a hard worker and so quick to call the cops? Can’t predict everything. Same as Sam can’t possibly predict the soft noises Dean makes into the kiss, the needy pitch of them, gimme more!

Sure, Sam’ll give him more. He hoists Dean up, all too happy to use his height to his advantage. Dean squeaks in surprise when his toes scuff the soft carpet, his body suspended in Sam’s grasp. Not for long—the bed’s right there, the single bed that they got knowing Dad won’t be visiting them anytime soon. Working a job somewhere down West. Well, they don’t need him to work the cases Bobby tosses their way.

And they sure as hell don’t need him to know about this. 

The bed creaks and dips under their combined weight when Sam crawls on top of Dean. Dean’s already tugging his own jeans off. His legs get tangled in the denim, and Sam shifts to help him yank them off. Dean’s gone commando today—been awhile since they took the time to do laundry—and Sam practically salivates at the familiar sight of his cock, already hard and shiny at the tip. If cocks can be pretty, Dean’s certainly is. 

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” Splashes of color spread across Dean’s face. Sam grins.

“Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll have you pose for me,” Sam hums, teasing. But it’s honestly hot too, the idea of Dean being his own bunk girl. Dean scoffs.

“Only if you pose with me or no dice. Wanna make a sex tape, Sammy?”

Sam rolls his eyes.

“Then we leak it and get famous. Think ‘bout it. Silk sheets, breakfast served in bed …” Dean throws his head back, cackling. 

“You really wanna make a..?” Sam asks, carefully prodding, ‘cause, hell, if it wasn’t for the danger of Dad finding it, he’d be setting up a tripod about now.

“What? No. Fuck no.” Dean grabs at the hem of Sam’s tshirt and pulls up, knuckles dragging along Sam’s back. Sam sits back at his haunches, yanking his shirt off. Dean falls silent for a moment, watching Sam undress all intense-like. “Don’t … don’t wanna chance someone seeing you like this. ‘S for my eyes only.”

Sam simply nods. His hair falls in his eyes, and he blows it off. He reaches out to Dean’s cock, but Dean grabs his wrist in midair, his scratched-up fingers pressing deep into Sam’s arm.

“No. I wanna go all the way.” And he goes from determined to bashful in five seconds flat. 

“All the way?” Sam takes a ridiculously long time to process it, but then it finally sinks in that handjobs and putting their mouths to good use on each other don’t cut it anymore. “You sure?”

“Wouldn’t be askin’ if I wasn’t sure.” When Sam hesitates, Dean zips back to bratty like a switch flipped. “C’mon! You need an engraved invitation?”

“No,” Sam makes a face, “but I do need lube.” 

“Got it. My duffle.”

There’s a tube of K-Y jelly tucked in a pocket of Dean’s duffle—brand new, too, still in the box. Sam can’t help but imagine Dean picking it up for them, planning this. Saving it for just the right moment. Their idea of romance isn’t a flower petals-covered bed in Four Seasons. A filthy motel bed, a grave campfire, and a fast car chase, that’s how you woo Dean Winchester. 

“First time?” he asks. Somehow, his brain can’t seem to form full-fledged sentences anymore. Sam powers through it. “Is this your first time with a guy?”

“Yeah. But I practiced on myself. Before.” Looks like Dean’s been stricken by the same wordless illness that plagues Sam’s own throat. 

“Yeah,” Sam echoes. He squeezes out a generous glob of lube on his fingers and rubs them together, getting them good and slick. Dean inches his legs a little wider apart. Some days Dean gets weird about his scarred leg, but he’s too far gone to worry about that right now. Sam braces himself on his left hand, hovering above Dean. 

“Do you even know what you’re doing? You break it, you buy it.” 

“I got this.” Seen enough Casa Erotica, touched enough girls, and this isn’t exactly rocket science. Sam slides his lubed-up hand between Dean’s legs, rubbing over his hole until Dean squirms, goosebumps running up his skin. His eyes grow half-lidded, black with lust. Sam’s been straining in his jeans for so long, he’s almost surprised he hasn’t come into his pants like a teenager yet. 

Sam pushes in with his index finger, slow. Dean parts for him like the sea.

This is the stuff of wet dreams, it really is, and Dean opens his legs just a little wider, pink down there, too. Just for Sam. Sex’s never been a big deal for Dean, but this sure feels charged. Dean’s been glued to Sam’s side ever since the hospital, barely even looking at any girls. And they run into so many pretty ones, long lashes and tight bodies. 

But Dean’s eyes are settled on Sam.

Figuratively. Right now, he’s staring somewhere right above Sam, face and chest flushed an even color.

“Do you have to stare at me while you do this?” Dean mutters. Sam’s so close, he could count each of his freckles right now, like stars, and name the constellations. 

“Yeah,” Sam says, easy. “I do.”

A sigh dies in Dean’s throat. Sam adds a second finger and really works to get him open, breathing growing heavy, digits buried deep. Dean drapes his arm over his face, covered in a sheen of sweat all over. 

“Too much?” Sam asks, because he has to make sure. He slows down a little.

“Not enough.” Dean pulls his arm aside to meet Sam’s eyes, shy-quick. “Bring it, Sammy. Harder. Faster.” Thinks he’s so tough. Sam can’t break him in without being gentle about it. Not to toot his own horn or anything but his cock’s way thicker than a couple of his fingers.

“Tomorrow, your ass is gonna be grateful I went slow.” Sam twists his fingers, buried deep inside, and Dean twitches around him, the shivers spreading all over his body like a ripple. 

“Tomorrow’s not coming for a while,” Dean smirks, breathless. “And neither will I if you keep—”

“Shush.” Sam kisses him mid-sentence. Dean reluctantly melts into it.

Dean’s got Sam wrapped around his finger. And Dean’s wrapped around Sam’s fingers right now. Heels digging into the mattress, spit-shiny lips parted.

Sam can barely wait. Something gives when he slips the third finger in, and Dean’s making all these small noises, legs spread shamelessly wide, urging Sam in. 

It’s a lie that vampires need to be invited in before crossing someone’s threshold. Just an urban legend. 

Big brothers do need an invitation, though. But once they’re in, they can barely slow down. Sam finger-bangs Dean, fingers undulating, until he cries out. Precome slobbered all over his stomach, but Sam’s not touching him and Dean’s not touching, either, determined to stick it out until Sam sticks his cock in him.

Hell if he doesn’t look like he’s all primed to blow already. Sam speeds up and leans in to kiss Dean’s neck. Salty sweat on Sam’s tongue, stubble burn on Dean’s neck, fingers stretching deep where Dean’s extra snug and warm.

“Sam,” Dean grabs at his shoulder, blunt nails digging in. “Look, you like yourself some foreplay, and, fuck, I can dig it too. But if you don’t put it in right now, I’m gonna fucking choke you.”

Sam chuckles. “Maybe I’m into that.”

Dean all but growls, and Sam doesn’t test fate any longer. Pulls his fingers out and scrambles to line himself up, cockhead pressed against Dean’s hole.

Sam doesn’t ask if Dean’s ready. Dean’s been ready ten minutes ago. He pushes in, slow, and hitch-gasps at the feeling. As he pushes in, he watches Dean’s face, ‘cause he knows Dean wouldn’t tell him even if he was being split in two down there. Dean doesn’t look pained, though. Just fuckin’ overwhelmed, and that makes two of them, don’t it.

Sam bottoms out. There it is: he’s as close to Dean as he can be, short of letting Dean climb inside his ribs and nestle down next to his sorry heart. He’s packed so much lube it squelches whenever he moves, but aside from that, the room is quiet. Motels are rarely really quiet, always someone watching way-too-loud TV or yelling at their lover a room over. 

But it sure as hell is quiet right now. 

“You okay?” That heart of his is fit to burst right now. Dean shifts a little, as if he’s trying to sink even lower. 

“Okay.” 

It shouldn’t hurt if you do it right, or so Sam’s heard. But Dean’s more fragile that he would ever care to admit, and Sam doesn’t know for sure how to do it right.

Sam looks down, where Dean’s open wide to take him in. He took all of it, wow. Sam’s a little lightheaded all of a sudden, ‘cause he’s balls deep in his little brother, and he loves it. A fucking lot. 

“Move,” Dean practically mewls, grabbing at Sam’s back like he’s trying to spur on a stubborn horse. “C’mon, Sam, Sammy— _please_.”

Sam never could say no to these eyes. So move he does, pulls his hips back and thrusts right back in. He tries to go slow, really, but Dean feels so nice around him and so damn demanding when he claws at Sam’s back, well—

It’s really hard to stop.

He slams right back in, harder and faster, like Dean begged him to earlier. The headboard crashes into the wall, loud like a gunshot. Dean’s legs twitch around him, and Sam must be doing something right, ‘cause Dean’s eyes roll back, ‘cause Dean’s squeezing down around him, ‘cause he’s making more noise than any of the Casa Erotica girls, and he’s prettier and needier than all of them put together.

Sam surely must be fucking blessed.

Dean’s whole body jerks up to meet him, trying to hop along for the ride, fingers scrambling for purchase on the yellowed bedsheets. Sam leans in close, kissing Dean’s cheeks and nose all over now that he’s got him pinned down and unable to protest the cheesiness of it all, his hands wrapped around Dean’s wrists like makeshift handcuffs. Dean scrunches his eyes shut but doesn’t protest. Tilts his head to offer Sam his mouth instead. Sam kisses him, kisses hard — just can’t get enough.

He slams in again, the little noises filthy, hips working overtime and his tongue working Dean’s warm mouth open. 

Sam’s the one between them who always sweats, but Dean’s been catching up tonight, hair slick with it and skin shiny.

Dean makes a choked-off noise as Sam fucks in, buries himself in deep, and grows root-still. His wrists twitch against where Sam’s pinning him down, against the webbing between Sam’s thumb and index finger. 

“Please,” he says, simple. “Sam, fuck. Fuck. I need...”

“I know.” Sam slides his hand in between their bodies, where Dean’s aching and leaking, and thumbs over the tip a few times. That’s all it takes. Dean clamps down around him and shudders hard, splashing his abdomen. Sam hitchfucks in one more time, and that’s all she wrote. Dean grabs at his hair with his freed hand as Sam spills deep inside in a couple heavy spurts. 

As close as it gets.

Sam pulls out, spent inch by spent inch, cock wet, and collapses on top of Dean’s warm body. Dean makes an oof-ing noise at that. “What’d you have for breakfast, cement? Get off,” he shoves at Sam’s shoulder. So much for afterglow. Sam chuckles and rolls them both over, Dean scooped up in his arms. Dean settles down by his side, looking all kinds of dazed, eyes still glazed over. Then he blinks, conscious thought crawling back into the light from under his lizard brain. Dean tries to get up and makes a noise when Sam doesn’t let go.

“M’ all itchy. You need a shower, too,” he sighs, but Sam tightens his grip on Dean’s side instead.

“Can we just…” Dean’s nodding before Sam finished speaking. His eyes grow soft, something so warm in them it makes Sam’s heart do a backflip. Nothing like a solid orgasm to warm a guy right up, huh? 

“Yeah. We can.” He buries his face in the crook of Sam’s neck. “Damn right we can.”

Sam strokes Dean’s hair, spiky and damp with sweat. 

“This was— this was awesome. Fuck. Blew my mind, man.” Dean kisses his neck, open-mouthed, slow, and so much more tender than Sam thought he ever would admit to. Always has to look rough and tough for the audience, the dumbass. Even when his audience consists of his big brother that has always seen his act for what it is.

But right now he’s sugar-sweet, sprinkling little kisses all over Sam’s cheek. 

“So good to me, Sammy.”

Freckled arm wrapped around Sam’s neck, scratched-knuckles hand wrapped around his heart.

-

“You know,” Sam says, just the right side of tipsy, resting on their together-forever bed. “You know, I found that nail polish. In your bag.” Little glass bottle, pink shimmer inside. Dean whips around like a spooked cat. 

“Stole it for a girl, never got around to giving it to her,” he says, voice a little choked-off. “That’s it.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Dean’s got a grade-A poker face and lies for a living. Sam’s probably the only person in the world who knows his tells. Dean’s drunk three years before the law gives him the okay, and he’s slipping up.

“If you got it for you, that’s okay.” Sam folds his hands in his lap. 

“Whatever. You’re dumb. Why would I want friggin’ nail polish?” Sam gives Dean a long I’m-calling-bullshit look. 

A very long look.

Dean caves, shoulders dropping. “Fine. I just … I dunno. I just threw it in with the rest of the crap I was buying ‘cause it was on the sales rack. It was dumb, ‘cause I didn’t even want it. I dunno why I did that.”

“Maybe you did want it a little? I wouldn’t judge,” Sam says, in his patented soft voice. Dean’s a flighty bird. Going to slip right out of Sam’s fingers if Sam’s not careful.

“Like Dad would be so thrilled if I was walking around with nail polish on.” That’s—that’s definitely not a no. “Besides, I don’t even know how to put it on.”

“I think I can,” Sam says, surprising even himself.

Dean’s eyebrows shoot up almost comically. “What? You learn that at a slumber party, Samantha? Do you also know how to do a french braid?” 

Sam ignores his deflection. Confessing that he liked pink nail polish was already big enough. 

“Just—c’mon. How hard can it be?”

“Sounds like something a guy would say before landing himself ankle-deep in crap, dude.”

“I’ll do your feet.” 

“You’re one of _those_ , huh?” Dean leans back, tongue swiping over his pearly whites. “Well, I’ll try anythin’ once …”

“The nail polish, idiot.” Sam smacks him with a pillow for getting too smart in the mouth. “Dad’ll never tell if it’s on your toes. You always wear socks, anyway.”

Dean hesitates, but Sam’s already pulling the sock off his healthy leg.

“Ugh, man, do you ever shower?” Sam nudges at Dean’s side, making a face. He balls the sock up and throws it in the general direction of their dirty laundry corner. 

“Don’t be such a princess.” Dean holds his foot up close to Sam’s nose, wiggling his toes. Sam rolls his eyes. 

“You need to get your feet washed before I can go at ‘em.”

“Well, fuck, dude. I’m buzzed, I’m good, I’m not moving.” Dean flops onto his back, feet dangling over the edge of the bed. 

“You’re not moving? Fine.” Sam gets stubborn when he’s drunk, and let’s face it: he’s way past simply tipsy.

He has to scrounge around for a basin, and settles on the ice bucket. Motel rooms aren’t exactly equipped to become beauty salons. But it’s not like Sam’s going the whole nine yards with exfoliation and moisturizing and the other things he’s seen on the covers of the glossy magazines. 

“You’re really, honest to fuck, doin’ this?” Dean sits up, blinking at Sam in slow motion. “So … so _lame_ , Sammy.” 

“I know.” Sam shrugs, setting the warm-water ice bucket under Dean’s feet, a washcloth in hand. Dean takes another swig from his bottle, dark green of the bottle catching the low light of the bedside lamp. Sam grabs his foot and slowly drags a washcloth over Dean’s foot.

“Lucky I’m so damn hammered right now.”

“Yeah, I’m making you get a foot rub, the horror.” Sam snorts, and Dean follows suit. Sam rubs in circles, sitting down on the floor, cross-legged. Dean falls silent, acting like it’s no biggie at all, even though his breathing grows harder and harder with every passing second.

Sam carefully pulls off the other sock, off the foot that’s covered in pink splotches of torn-up-and-healed up skin. Dean tenses a little when Sam touches the scars.

“Still hurts?” 

“Nah,” and this part actually sounds true, unlike Dean’s usual _I have a couple extra holes in me, but everything’s peachy_ schtick. “I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” Dean’s got his nose upturned to the ceiling, voice suspiciously even. Come to think of it, he’s been avoiding looking at his injured limb as much as he could. 

Sam wishes to god he could explain to Dean how pretty he thinks Dean is. But the words don’t come, and even if they did, Dean wouldn’t accept ‘em. Got the Winchesters’ stubborness in spades. So Sam just washes his feet instead.

He presses a kiss to the high arch of Dean’s foot once he’s done. Dean gives a shocked chuckle, weakly trying to tug it away. 

“Dude, what’s with you—knew you were a freaking weirdo,” Dean laughs, rolling his eyes, a blush spreading across his face. Sam uncaps the polish and makes Dean’s toe match the shade of his cheeks: bright pink.

“Man, you’re pretty,” he mutters under his breath, and Dean scoffs.

“Pretty? I look like Deadpool under this.” He yanks at his jeans, face reading _not like I wanna be pretty anyways! Who gives a fuck?_

 _You do, Dean_ , Sam thinks. God, you’d think it’s a crime to care, the way you plead not guilty to it over and over again. But you long blew plausible deniability on this one. 

“Damn right.”

Dean looks away, but Sam can see his cheek crease up with a smile from where he’s sitting.

-

Dean’s about as subtle as a brick. Sam comes home to a book lying on the table and a Dean watching TV very intently. He doesn’t turn his head even as Sam picks the book up. It’s a well-loved paperback promising him a “ _dramatic, thrilling, shattering!_ ” true tale of an all-American boy turned murderer. A pair of cold eyes stares Sam down from the black-and-white photo cover.

Sam smooths his hand over the reduced price sticker. There’s a fresh receipt sticking out in between the pages. Sam’s oddly charmed that Dean didn’t steal it and spent his hard-hustled cash on it instead.

“Was looking for lore books in the local second-hand bookstore, found this instead. I know you’re into this serial killer crap or—or whatever.” Dean half-shrugs with one shoulder, eyes still transfixed on the TV. Sam could break down laughing at how nonchalant Dean’s trying to look. He bites back a smile, turning away so Dean wouldn’t see. “Weirdo.”

“Thanks,” Sam finally says, putting on a straight face. “This is definitely up my alley.”

“Consider it an early Christmas present,” Dean hums, eyes still on TV. Sam plops down next to him, hand ruffling the short hair at the back of Dean’s neck. Dean leans right into the touch. Dean’s as open with his body as he is shy with his words. “Happy I indulged your weird-ass fetish, huh?” he grins. Sometimes Sam wants to kiss him, sometimes to throttle him. Right now it’s a little bit of both.

“It’s not a _fetish_.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me you can’t say how many victims the Green River Killer had.”

“Dude…” Sam laughs, and, okay, so he knows it’s forty-nine proven and about a hundred possible, so what? 

“What’s your stance on John Wayne Gacy? Serial killer but a clown. Like, what wins over here?” Dean’s laughing, the asshole. He reaches out to grab Sam’s knee, thumb flicking back and forth over the denim. Eyes shining, Sunday best shit-eating grin on, hands wandering, Sam’s idiotic little brother. “No, but real talk. D’you want me to threaten you a little? Hold a knife to your throat?” Dean licks his lips, crawling into Sam’s lap. 

“What? No.”

“So you’re the killer in this scenario? Kinky. I’m game.”

“It’s a hobby. Not a fetish. Big difference.” Sam slides his hand in Dean’s back pocket, fingers curling against the familiar curve. “You don’t get off on imagining me as a rainbow trout.”

“Maybe I do. You don’t know.” Dean moves in to roll his hips, but yet another fit of laughter throws him off-rhythm before he even started. “You’d be a largemouth bass, anyway. Overgrown and, well, got a large mouth.” His voice is all too warm for the stuff he’s saying.

“Nah, I’d wanna be an octopus. I could use a few extra arms. All the better to grab you with.” Sam paws at Dean’s arms and shoulders all greedy-like. Dean cracks up all over again.

“Tentacles? Now, _that’s_ kinky.”

“Actually, octopodes’ limbs are called arms, not tentacles.” Sam grins. “Tentacles have fewer suckers.”

“You’re a sucker.” Dean’s hand is in Sam’s hair, tugging. Sam grabs at Dean’s thighs, hands aligning with his own fingerprints lying underneath the flannel and denim. “Nerd.”

“Dick.” Sam grins wide, pulling Dean flush-close. Dean’s so warm. He dives in to kiss Sam, grinding down, zipper rubbing against zipper. Sam meets Dean halfway, fingers digging into Dean’s flesh and teeth sinking into Dean’s bottom lip.

Dean’s the I’ll-try-anything-once type, putting his heart and hips into everything he does. He shoves Sam into the couch’s back, face flushed pink, hand around Sam’s wrist.

Sam stares up and there’s not an ounce of guilt to be found in his veins even though it’s his little brother that’s rutting up on him like that. Dean’s shaking-eager from head to toe, perky little ass twitching against Sam’s fingers, hands sliding off Sam’s shoulders, over his chest, down to his stomach.

Dean undoes Sam’s belt, moving quick, and pops his button. Sam lifts his hips, Dean yanks his jeans down. Like cogs in a well-oiled machine.

“Been dreamin’ of a white Christmas, Sammy.” 

Dean winks and slides onto the floor between Sam’s spread legs.

“Then,” Sam says, “open wide.”

Dean does.

-

Dean’s slurping down the last dregs of his milkshake, sunrays tangled in the eternal cowlick at the back of his hair. He plays footsie with Sam under the table, knock-off heavy Timberlands rubbing up the side of Sam’s ankle. 

Sam doesn’t even flinch. 

They’re just passing by here. Even if someone has a problem today, Sam and Dean will be nothing more than a word-of-mouth can-you-believe-these-two story. Dad’s across the country.

No one knows the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Sam shifts his own leg to meet Dean halfway and gets a pearly white grin for his trouble. His brother belongs on magazine covers. Every girl in the country would dream about his freckles.

Sam’s the only one that gets to play connect the dots with them, though, trailing his finger over Dean’s face, in these rare early mornings they don’t have to rush to be in the next town to work another case. Dean scrunches his nose whenever he wakes up to Sam doing this, calls him a creep or a perv and kisses him, morning breath be damned.

The world, Sam’s long learned, is all too cold not to cling to whatever ray of light and warmth falls into a guy’s lap.

He reaches out across the table and places his fingers on Dean’s hand. Dean sputters against his red-and-white striped straw. “You’re a fucking idiot,” he says after a coughing fit. Then uncurls his fingers and shifts them, ever so slightly, into Sam’s palm.


End file.
